Yes, we went there one of the days, but we usually went to that greasy spoon of a diner and had brunch. I heard it was bad this year. After that many years of hunting those spots, you can only imagine that they are either thinned out or highly educated. My buddy is building his retirement home over at Plum Island as I type, and I'll be making the trip as an annual vacation. I'm pretty stoked to get back. When we were there in 2005, we shot over 100 birds between 6 of us. Of course it wasn't all sea ducks, we hit the salt marsh, and shot other birds like mallard/blacks, buffies and mergs. I went out there to take some taxidermy specimens for my collection, and I couldn't have been happier. I ended up with (of course) my Eiders, but got a pair of surfs, a pair of white-wings, a few old squaw, a pair of red-brested mergansers, a couple black ducks, a brant, and couple bufflehead. I started off the first day, and couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, then I just watched my buddies, and where the pellets were hitting the water. I would then ask them how far they were leading, and they would say three feet etc. That's when I realized you needed to lead a bunch more than that if you were going to take them at those distances. I used a borrowed SBE II the first morning, because my normal gun is chambered for 2 and 3/4", Of course I shot like crap! The second day I took my Beretta out, shot BB, and never missed a thing! I should have just went with my instinct the first day instead of using a gun I wasn't familiar with. The only thing I didn't like about the hunt, was the fact we had 6 guns blasting those birds, and it felt less like hunting, and more like shooting. I'm looking forward to hunting with my buddy, and trading shots. The nice thing about shooting one of those hen Eiders, is they are probably the prettiest hens of all the bird species. That brant looks like a real pig! By the way, I'd be less apt to shoot the birds in those numbers, because I surely didn't like duck sausage!
Pete
